


A Long Way From Home

by LivefromG25



Series: A Long Way From... [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Armie POV, M/M, sucks to be him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 19:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13620612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivefromG25/pseuds/LivefromG25
Summary: Armie has a bit of an existential crisis.





	A Long Way From Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ForYou_InSilence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForYou_InSilence/gifts).



> Disclaimer: None of this is real. This is all projection. I don’t speak Italian, all mistakes are my own.

_On a plane, somewhere over the Atlantic. 00.24._  
  
I am still thinking about you. Of how you make me feel. Of the effect you have on me as a whole. Of what any and all of this means.

   
I can’t believe today was our last day together. I am not sure what is less believable about it; the fact it was our last or the fact it was only still, technically,  _today_.

It feels so long and yet in the same breath like it was only moments ago.   
Almost like a toothache I keep tentatively prodding at this…thing… with my tongue, testing the pain, to see if I am ready to think about all of this. Maybe I will never be ready. Maybe now is a good a time as any.

   
 **Four whiskeys in.**

 _  
_I spoke to Luca on the way to the airport. Or, rather, Luca spoke to me. He told me what you had said to him about me. About us. He didn’t want to betray your trust but I know he is worried about you. He blames himself I think for pushing you hard. For needing you to be as open as you have been these past few weeks. Elio needed this, so Luca needed this. It was beautiful to watch, by the way.

  
I think back to all the times I have sat with him, going over and over everything I can to be able to unlock what he needs from Oliver. My fear of it all, how this process has changed – and is still changing – me. I think we took our eyes off the ball, T. We should have been minding you better.

  
He told me how confused you felt, how the anticipation of the end was hitting you in ways you hadn’t expected. He asked you what you meant and you told him. I asked him  _what_  you told him and he said no. He wasn’t giving me that. That part of the conversation, he said, was yours alone.

   
“He loves me, doesn’t he? He is in love with me…”, I offered. Luca just stared back at me, unsmiling.

   
“Armie, I will not betray his.. his…  _segreti_ … this is something the two of you should discuss. But I will say this. I saw both of you open up to me, to yourselves, to each other over the past weeks, I am not fool enough to think this would only affect one of you. The fact you already have answers suggests to me that this is something that is not too far from your own mind. I want you to be careful here, Armie, ok? He is young, he is vulnerable, but he is not stupid. Do not lead him where you do not plan to follow…”

  
The irony of being told not to lead you when it has been me following your every move is not lost on me. Fuck, T.

   
 **Five whiskeys in.**

 **  
**I think back to earlier when we said our goodbyes. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone look so beautiful trying to hold it together. You came to me wordlessly in a hug and I could feel the vibrations in your chest. Or was it my own chest? No matter.You pulled back, your eyes searching mine. Those eyes were nearly the undoing of me, I went to speak but you silenced me. “Thank you…”, a small nod, a wave of your hand, “…for this. For all of this. From the bottom of my heart, genuinely, thank you”. I could only nod. I didn’t trust myself to speak. You pulled away from me, a small smile on your lips. “Safe flight, _Oliver.”_.

  
I let out a deep breath I don’t even realise I’m holding. Could you see it in my eyes right then that I loved you? I hadn’t even spoken to Luca yet but I could  _feel_ it between us, T. I know it was there.

   
You had told me a story earlier about your family and your life back in New York. It all sounded so simple, so positive, uncomplicated. I think about what I would do to you, to your world, if I ever said any of the things that are racing through my mind right now. The thought of that alone is enough to render me silent. There is nothing positive that can come out of this and to be the one who destructs everything that you have? It would kill me.

   
You deserve the world, T. and no matter how many different ways I play things out, trying different scenarios on for size or how often I simply keep returning to the overriding want for it to be me who can give you all of it….the hard hitting truth is that I  _can’t._

My own life, my own situations, they only come to me  _after_ all of this. Maybe it is because I am still not ready to wrestle with, analyse or get control over all of that yet. I need to come to terms with this, with Crema, with you, first. Maybe time at home will help put things in perspective but I really don’t know, man.

I am not the same guy returning home I was when I left. This experience has changed me in ways I don’t even fully comprehend.

I keep turning this sickening feeling I have in my stomach around, holding it up to the light. Y'know, I thought it might be disgust. At myself, at you, at how I felt, at how I still feel.   
It isn’t.   
Perhaps then guilt? After all, I am in no position to be sharing myself so completely with someone else.   
But no. It isn’t guilt either.

The truth of the matter is, when I look at it through the cut crystal of this whiskey glass, I can see it for exactly what it is.

Desire. Plain and simple. Desire for you, for us. Desire to make this work somehow, desire to keep you. Fear. Because of course the two are bedfellows. Fear of losing you, fear of losing what we have. Fear that there is no way I am going to be able to wrangle any of this into a place where I can confront it honestly and fuck the consequences.

 

**Six whiskeys in; Coming home.**

**  
**I don’t know what any of this means any more, T.

I don’t know how the world is going to look when I step off this plane. I don’t know if I belong here, at home with my family, or if I am destined to only ever truly exist in a tiny village in Northern Italy, loving and being loved in the purest of ways.

All I do know is this. Whatever form our future takes, if we can never be together, I left my heart with you in Crema. You don’t even know you have it -  it’s tucked away in your suitcase. I trust you to take care of it no matter what and even though I left Oliver there too, I took Elio with me. Your heart is my heart.

Forever. Always.


End file.
